Keywords Studios launches Keywords Ventures

Keywords Studios is delighted to announce that it has established Keywords Ventures which will make modest investments in innovative technologies and services that will benefit its clients, while further accelerating the success of investee companies through access to its global platform and relationships. Complementing existing Keywords services, Keywords Venturers will identify and support innovative new ventures where the Group believes that its game developer and publisher client base would benefit from improved access to those technologies and services. Furthermore, investee companies will benefit from both Keywords funding and associated commercial agreements providing access to Keywords’ global reach, while Keywords will benefit from its ability to drive further value from its investments by generating revenues from its client base. An investment committee, formed of senior members of the Keywords executive team, will propose investments and commercial arrangements to the Board of Keywords, who will agree funding on a case by case basis before taking what will typically be minority stakes in selected investee companies. As the first of many, we are delighted to make our initial Investment in an Automated Test Solution for Compliance with the GDPR. KWV will invest up to £300,000 in Series A funding for a 45% shareholding in a pre-revenue company, AppSecTest Ltd, creator of ASAnalyser, a cloud based automatic testing solution for mobile apps, including games. Furthermore, Keywords has entered into an exclusive worldwide licence to commercialise ASAnalyser. Client trials of ASAnalyser will begin during July with a possible full deployment of the solution in September. Remarking on the launch of Keywords Ventures, Andrew Day, CEO of Keywords Studios, commented: “We are excited by the establishment of Keywords Ventures, which we believe will help bring products, technology and services to market that will be attractive to our clients." “Our strategy to consolidate the fragmented market for video games services remains unchanged with KWV being highly complementary to this in bringing additional capabilities to our global services platform.”